Browsing by Author "Sawhney, Rapinder"

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    Healthcare 4.0: trends, challenges and research directions
    (2020) Tortorella, Guilherme Luz; Fogliatto, Flavio Sanson; Mac Cawley Vergara, Alejandro; Vassolo, Roberto; Sawhney, Rapinder
    This paper aims at examining the trends, challenges and theoretical gaps in the implementation of Healthcare 4.0 (H4.0) based on a scoping review of the literature. For that, we searched journal articles in four widely known databases and screened the retrieved articles to obtain a publications' portfolio. Our findings indicate that, despite the recency of the subject, research in H4.0 has been conducted in an interdisciplinary way with a diversified set of applications and functionalities. In terms of its implementation, H4.0 has been more commonly found in hospitals' information flows, especially the ones related to healthcare treatments. The identified implementation trends, however, neglect a more holistic approach for H4.0, which originated three main research directions for this topic. Although identified as a trending topic in the area of healthcare operations management, literature on H4.0 may be viewed as randomly conceived, lacking academic alignment and practical orientation based on a grounded theory, which we aim at providing with the present study.
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    Influence of team members' characteristics on the sustainability of continuous improvement initiatives
    (2021) Tortorella, Guilherme Luz; Fogliatto, Flavio Sanson; Vergara, Alejandro Mac Cawley; Goncalves Quelhas, Osvaldo Luis; Sawhney, Rapinder
    This article aims at examining the influence of teams' characteristics on the sustainability of Continuous Improvement (CI) initiatives. To achieve that, two identical manufacturing cells undergoing CI implementation and subordinated to the same leadership were investigated through a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. While one team has shown a sustained and increased performance, the other could not maintain improvements and worsened its performance. As the only factor distinguishing cells is team composition, we verify which team characteristics impact on CI sustainability. Results indicate that workers' seniority in company and in team, as well as their age positively influence team behaviour regarding the sustainability of CI initiatives. Long-term sustainability of CI initiatives has been a major concern in most companies. Although previous studies have approached the subject from different and complementary perspectives, the understanding of how specific characteristics of team members may influence the sustainability of CI is still vague and imprecise.